Wednesday, 26 October 1831: 'Here we are [at Portsmouth] still fixd by the inexorable wind [...] I engaged in a new novel by Mr. Smith calld New Forest. It is written in an old stile calculated to meet the popular ideas, somewhat like Man as He is Not [by Robert Bage] and that class. The author's opinions seem rather to sit loose upon [him] and to be adopted for the nonce and not very well brought out. His idea of a heroe is an American philosopher with all the affected virtues of a republican which no man believes in. This is all very tiresome not to be able to walk abroad for an instant but to be kept in this old house which they call the Fountain [inn], a mansion made of wood in imitation of a ship.'